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“It’s not about traffic,” Wisniewski told CNN. “It’s about abuse of power. It’s about an administration that will not take no for an answer and an administration that is very comfortable exacting political retribution.”

He said between 3,000 and 5,000 pages of documents about the issue exist, according to reports. That’s vastly more than the roughly two dozen pages released Wednesday after state lawmakers issued a subpoena on the matter.

Fred Malek, a finance chair of the Republican Governors Association, was incredulous about the documents .

“This is way too bush-league for somebody of Christie’s sophistication and ability to be a part of,” Malek said. “If somebody on his staff did do it, I am convinced he would not have known about it because if he’d known about it, he would not have permitted it. This is bush-league stuff. This is not Chris Christie.”

Text messages between Wildstein and an unidentified person were also released Wednesday that mentioned Christie’s reelection opponent, Democratic state Sen. Barbara Buono.

“I feel badly about the kids,” the person said in a message on the week of the lane closures, apparently referring to school buses caught in the jam.

“They are the children of Buono voters,” replied Wildstein, who resigned in December.

Christie addressed questions last month at length about the lane closures, his and his staff’s involvement and the allegations the closures were politically motivated.

“To be clear, at no point did you instruct anybody to close lanes into the GWB and you did not tell anybody to do that to get back at the mayor of Fort Lee,” a reporter said at a Dec. 13 press conference, according to a transcript provided by the governor’s office prior to Wednesday’s revelations.

“Absolutely not,” Christie said.

“Can you say with certainty that someone else didn’t on your staff or in your administration act on your behalf for the lane closures for political retribution?” a reporter asked.

“Yeah, I have absolutely no reason to believe that,” Christie said. “I’ve made it very clear to everybody on my senior staff that if anyone had any knowledge about this that they needed to come forward to me and tell me about it and they’ve all assured me that they don’t.”

He was also asked whether Wildstein or another Port Authority official, former New Jersey state Sen. Bill Baroni, called for the traffic study “as retaliation for a non-endorsement.”

“I can only tell you what Senator Baroni has said publicly and to everybody in this office, was that they believed the traffic study was necessary and that they ordered it, but that the way they did it was mistaken and they didn’t follow protocols,” Christie said.

Messages from Baroni were also among the documents released Wednesday. Like Wildstein, Baroni resigned in December.

Former New Jersey Republican Gov. Tom Kean, a longtime Christie mentor, was stunned when he learned of the emails.

“That’s a big deal because they were saying there’s no connection to the governor’s office,” he told POLITICO. “That’s a connection.”

Operatives who dislike Christie were gleeful with one Republican strategist saying the emails read like an episode of “The Sopranos.”

“It’s really hard to see how someone who’s tried to stake his reputation on straight talk can get around this episode, which is certainly rife with dissembling, coming out of the highest echelons of his administration,” said Joel Benenson, President Barack Obama’s pollster, who has worked extensively in New Jersey.

“I think it’s a colossal screwup on multiple levels that just reached the highest levels of his campaign and his administration. The closing the lanes itself was a colossal screwup and everything between then and today is a colossal screwup.”